The Burden of Secrets
by Jessahme Wren
Summary: Final moments of Episode 8x24 from Chloe's POV. When faced with losing him, Chloe draws strength from a previous experience with Jack.


She attended his funeral. She had stood there, squinting at the white sun, ramrod straight, crying. It was a Sunday. She wore her off-black pantsuit and heels, the latter of which drove into the fresh sod like tent stakes, as if the earth, death, and whatever else knew it was all a ruse and were forcing her cooperation. The perfunctory dance.

Chloe looked around her, at the paltry company gathered around Jack's open grave. All in black, everyone, shoulders hunched in a grim little circle like buzzards gloating over a fresh kill. Only there would be no feast tonight. Some knew. Some didn't. They grieved, were devastated, and as she looked into Kim's stricken face, her grief-swollen eyes, the terrible secret raged to be told. With gentle tears, Chloe silenced it.

Jack wasn't dead, but he wasn't there.

She looked down at her hand still clutching the fistful of dirt. The brutal wind whipped her hair as she walked forward, holding her hand out over the precipice. She opened it, and the soft dirt slid like finely milled flour off the lacquered ebony lid, dispersing into the deep like sand through an hourglass. Over the chasm, she locked eyes with Kim. _He's not in there_, she wanted so badly to say. _He's alive, and he's keeping you safe. _But she couldn't, so she cried more tears…tears for the secret, and tears for herself.

-0-0-0-

It was different before. She had known Jack was alive, had even been aware of his location at times. She could contact him, if needed, through an elaborate network of system workarounds. She could do none of that now.

Back at CTU, Jack filled the room. Chloe stood there, looking at the transmitted image, ramrod straight, crying. She looked over at Cole, then Arlo. The three of them knew, as well as President Taylor and Tim Woods. No one else. She thought of the little clutch of friends at Jack's funeral, of those who had known the secret, and how that knowledge had led to their deaths. She wondered bleakly how many in this new, limited company would survive the burden. For Jack's sake as well as her own, Chloe hoped she could defy the odds once again.

On screen Jack knelt in the dirt, bloodied, broken, but alive. He listened tolerantly to the woman who'd so insidiously covered the truth, who was, from a certain point of view, the only reason Jack was there. "I would give anything to take back the time," she heard President Taylor say, and wondered briefly if Jack didn't feel the same about so many things.

Her phone rang, and it was Jack. She was the only one not surprised. He pleaded for his family, putting all his trust in her. She wouldn't let him down. "How much time do you think I've got," he wanted to know. _Not long_, she thought grimly. It wouldn't be long until the entire might of the Russian and American military would be focused on finding him.

"Chloe." There was a difference in the way he said her name then, like the fate of the world might rest on what he said next. She waited. "When you first came to CTU, I never knew that it was going to be you that would cover my back all those years."

She completely broke then. _Don't you say goodbye to me Jack,_ she thought fiercely. But that was exactly what he was doing. Running comm at CTU, she and been in Jack's ear countless hours. From the sleepiest stakeout to the most adrenaline-fueled crisis, Chloe had been there. But she had never heard him like this. Jack Bauer, arguably her truest friend in the world, was saying goodbye.

"I know that everything you did today was to try and protect me, I know that." It was his way of absolving her guilt, the complex amalgam of regret and duty that stained the memory of her actions today. In other words, he forgave her.

_Don't you dare say goodbye to me..._but she only listened, quietly weeping. Jack turned his battered face to the sky, squinting at the white sun, and looked into Chloe's eyes. "Thank you," he said simply. He never minced words, never said what wasn't necessary. She was the same way, and knew that those two words were so much more than an empty social grace. _No, _she wanted to say, _thank you._ But no one ever would, not sufficiently. Not his country and not his family.

"Good luck Jack," she managed. He would know she was crying, probably already did. She said nothing else.

She watched him struggle then, coming to a standing position with painful effort. There was probably nothing that would infuriate Jack more than Chloe's pity, but as she watched him stagger out of that dusty back lot, clutching his side in gritty determination, she did pity him. Jack had no one now. No family, no friends. And she couldn't help him.

No, it was not like before. With death, there is life afterwards. For those who are left, the wound heals eventually, and later there is some semblance of a normal life. As strange as it seemed, Jack's "funeral" brought closure, Chloe realized. She had known the truth then, was the keeper of the truth. There were jobs to be done in order to keep Jack's cover. Now, there was nothing. He was on his own. In some small way, now so was she.

Jack looked into the sky, at Chloe, one last time. She didn't dare say goodbye. Not even in the darkest, most untouched recesses of her heart could she entertain the possibility that she would never see him again. It seemed inconceivable, an anathema, to consider Jack Bauer not a part of her life, even if it might be true. She looked into his face and wanted nothing more than to follow him for as long as possible, for as far as the drone would travel, to make sure he was ok. She couldn't. But she could buy him some time.

"What happened here didn't happen," she told Arlo. She looked around at the empty room, at her office upstairs. She was director of CTU, and Jack was a fugitive from justice. Very soon the pursuit would begin, and she would have to play along, the perfunctory dance.

She wiped a hand over her face, straightening her back. There was work to be done. Life would stubbornly go on, and she hoped that Jack would always be out there, somewhere, a part of it.


End file.
